Key takeaways
- Existing panels run powerful code behind a web login; we split the web part from the part that holds root.
- A change you can preview is a change you can trust, so every action has a plan view.
- Open tools underneath mean you are never locked in: backups are standard restic, sites are plain files.
- A flat price per server and a free plan follow from the same goal: no surprises.
There are good control panels already. We built another because four things kept bothering us, and none of them is a matter of polish. Each one is a design decision that has to be there from the first line of code.
One bug should not hand over every site
A hosting panel sits in front of a lot of power: it writes web server configuration, creates system users and reads mail. If the code that answers web requests can also run commands as root, any bug in it can become a takeover of every site on the machine. This has happened to real panels, and it is the first lesson on our security page.
So RespireCloud splits the work. The web panel is an unprivileged process. A separate root agent accepts a short list of typed operations and refuses everything else. A request has to name an operation the agent knows, with parameters that pass its schema. There is no place for a shell string to be assembled from user input.
A change should be something you can read first
Most panels apply a change the moment you press a button. You find out afterwards what it did. In RespireCloud every action can be shown as a plan first: the files it will write, the services it will reload and the risk it carries. You see the difference before it happens.
This is also what makes the assistant safe to use. It does not run commands. It proposes the same plans, and you approve them. High risk actions ask for a fresh passkey or code before they run, and every change is written to an audit log that is chained so tampering shows.
Open tools underneath
We did not want a panel that you cannot leave. A site is a directory served by nginx. A database is a normal MariaDB or PostgreSQL database. A mailbox is a Maildir. Backups are standard restic repositories. If you stop using RespireCloud, your data is where an experienced administrator would expect it. The storage and backups page describes the formats.
A price you can predict
Panels that charge by the number of accounts make growth feel like a penalty, and price rises each year make planning harder. RespireCloud has a free plan for one server, and the paid tiers are one flat price per server. There is no fee per account and no yearly rise. The pricing page lists the tiers and the add-ons, and what is free on purpose.
From one server to a fleet
The same panel manages a single VPS or many servers. The cluster feature adds roles, load balancers with health checks and moving an account with its mail between servers, and the cloud servers feature creates servers at several providers from the panel. You do not move to a second tool when you grow.
What we are still working on
RespireCloud is in early access, and some things are not yet proven in the field. The changelog shows what changes every week, and the status notes on each feature say what is built and what is planned.
Questions
Why not just use an existing open source panel?
Several are good and free, and the comparison pages say where each fits. We built RespireCloud for people who want previewed changes, a split between the web part and root, and one panel for a single server up to a fleet.